– You can find out about the movie me and Goldust made here and here. Post-production, baby! Also, follow that wrestling promotion I work for/am increasingly involved in helping run here. Our next show is in Austin on January 5. Book your flights immediately.

Please click through for the Best And Worst Of WWE Raw for December 9, 2013.

Lol here we go again. Brandon Stroud being the David Brent of feminism, sticking up for women because it’s what he thinks people want to hear or maybe trying to impress his girlfriend or whatever. Just check any one of his columns, every week he makes a crude remark about Natalia or whatever Diva is annoying him at that particular moment. No one else should make jokes about women, but its all in good humor when he does it, I guess.

I would and have called Brandon out on any hypocritical/sexist comments he’s made, but you’re pretty naive if you think him telling people “hey, try not to call women xyz” is something people WANT to hear/read. Or did you not see the content of the tweets directed at him? A feminist attitude does not impress most people, least of all most wrestling fans.

Additionally, if somebody (like Ari) points out that I’m doing something I didn’t realize I was doing, I’ll work to remedy it. I’ve made jokes in the past that I wouldn’t make now, and I’m proud of the continuing process off, as Rock put it, growing up.

There’s no hypocrisy in bemoaning the way women are treated and objectified in professional wrestling and also writing a separate column every week on “total divas”. Or bashing the rock then starting off the first entire page of your column about your “twitter feud” with him. I’m not even a Rock fan, just wanted to point out what a hypocritical douche Brandon is. Also, the Rock has 6.5 million followers, obviously there’s going to be a few idiots among them.

Sure, but as others have pointed out that’s clearly not going to accomplish anything. That’d be like if I went on the Obama official twitter page and posted “obamacare sucks” and be SHOCKED when people come back at me with angry, unintelligent responses

brandon never calls the divas on being ugly or bitches or fat or whatever, or men on being faggots or gay or having a bitch mom (god, I feel dirty just from typing that). he talks about “their work on this wrestling show, how it might not have been done properly and how it could be done better.”

he also does the same for men. he treats both as equals, and treats them for a legit reason and with a respectful manner. and he apologizes about whatever wrong thing he said in the past and “grows up” and etc.

@Brandon — then what was the whole point of this whole exercise? You poked the hornets rest, rustled up all the hornets, got stung… and now you’re replying to and acknowledging all the people who are thanking you for it.

I get that your heart is in the right place, but you’ve basically said this wasn’t about changing anything or opening people’s eyes… you just wanted to zing the Rock. Congrats, you did it. So why are you spending so much time basking in the adoration of your audience like it was something more than that?

G4H, if no one ever calls out the Rock on his bullshit by Brandon, then by who? His crew of yes men? Cena, who makes quite a few sexist comments himself? The Rock deserves this crap because he is spreading this bullcrap on national tv with a ton of impressionable children watching, wouldn’t call that pointless.

When I see the soap box holier than thou rants incoming, I usually just try to skip past them. I find no need in reading a generally entertaining article on professional wrestling and being lectured on how horrible other people are — whether it’s an on screen personality or sweeping generalization of a group of people — for more or less anything they do or say that Brandon finds wrong.

like I said, he’s even admitting he’s not a saint in that one. he says “I’m not sure I can call myself a good person.

and just saying thank you ONCE shouldn’t translate to what you described as “you just wanted to zing the Rock. Congrats, you did it. So why are you spending so much time basking in the adoration of your audience like it was something more than that?”

@Sandpanda – “if no one ever calls out the Rock on his bullshit by Brandon, then by who? — The Rock deserves this crap because he is spreading this bullcrap on national tv with a ton of impressionable children watching, wouldn’t call that pointless.”

What’s more important: getting a message thru to the Rock and getting him to re-think his actions on TV or getting thru the Rock and pissing him off with an aggressive tweet?

Brandon did the second thing. He’s admitted as much in these comments, he admitted he knew what the response would be. It played out how he expected. What did he do that was so brave? How is he “speaking up”?

he made me realize how bad are a lot of wrestling fans, and how important it is to try and change them.

I’ll devote a lot of my time to that in the future.

now, I’m just one person. I don’t know about others. but from now on, I’ll be carrying that message that I saw brandon being couragous enough to start to everyone and at all times in the best way possible.

I don’t agree with Caine, but I don’t approve of Brandon’s attitude with this either. Making an entire page about ‘look guys, I’m Twitter-feuding with the Rock, I’m an important and acknowledged person!’ seems remarkably un-Brandon-like to me, and more like something your average e-fedder or 411 smark would do.

I’m actually with G4H on this one. Unlike Caine, he’s not trying to troll, rather presenting a valid-ish point which I might have made myself. So yeah, consider me on his corner, at least until he does/says something stupid.

@themosayat I like you dude, but you seriously mean to tell me you DIDN’T know most wrestling fans were awful people? Spend 5 minutes in a wrestling forum/efed and you realize that much!

I want to thank you so much for caring about women and all of the other groups that WWE and society at large shits on, and I’m super sorry that you have to deal with the onslaught of 5 year old Rock fans tweeting at you. Large scale internet hate really sucks. Now to read the rest..

brandon is our messenger (because he got this platform to voice our opinion as the voice of the voiceless that he is now … the writer of the writingless?! moving on.) and as his companions and followers, we should make this message reach everybody we ever know everyday of our lives at any given moment.

in short, you inspire me (us), brandon. you rock. and you keep on rocking, brother.

How about a flag with the Nexus “N” on it, with Mark Henry’s face from his Hall of Pain shirt behind it, The Shield dogs on the left, and Goldust snarling on the right, and for no discernible reason, Stone Cold crucified on the Undertaker symbol in each upper-hand corner.

This is why I hate twitter; it gives idiots a voice and power. Its like high school amped up to 11 gigawatts. Kids 9-13 that watch shows like My Little Pony or SpongeBob SquarePants knows that its not real because its a cartoon. Kids 9-13 that used to watch Sesame Street know its not real because its puppets. But kids 9-13 that watch WWE may not know that its all pretend. Especially if they don’t know that wrestling is “fake”. Doubly-especially if they see the good guys treat women like that. I blame Mr. Rogers’ passing for this. The kids are growing up without a moral compass to teach them how to treat people right and how to know what’s pretend and what is for real!

The good part of Brandon playing the part of “human fecal matter receiver” for the Rock’s loyal fans is that we know that Vickie Guerrero is on board with being treated like crap before a cable TV audience, and that elevates her even more in my eyes. And she gets paid to do that.

It’s sad and kinda cliched but the reality is being a good person and speaking up is harder than generally being a shithead all the time. I think I speak for a lot of us when I say don’t stop doing what you do, ever. Good job.

Good on Brandon and this column to consistently call Dwayne on his offensive ‘sense of humor.’
I’m hoping a % of the twitter attention, however small, actually affects fans in a positive way.
I think there are some people who may see the exchange on twitter, and realize they are not alone in liking an entertainment product that still has terrible scenes & characters they are personally uncomfortable with.

Do you honestly feel like tagging the Rock and then asking him if “can stop talking to women like they’re garbage for five seconds” was the best way to introduce yourself — and your concerns to him? Did you think Rock was actually reading his @ replies and would respond? Did you think he would not find that to be confrontational?

Why didn’t you tag @WWE or @VinceMcMahon when making that comment? Do you tag @SteveAustinBSR and ask him when was the last time he beat his wife?
Did you raise your concerns about WWE’s sexist hiring practices when it comes to female talent when you took your photo op with John Laurinatis? There’s a time and a place and a way to raise your concerns about sensitive subject matter and do you really feel like anonymously calling a celebrity out on a public platform was the most productive way to actually get new people to consider your opinions?

Believe it or not, but I’m a fan of your writing. I’m also a fan of the Rock’s (still, in spite of recent bad TV). I’m also annoyed w/ how much the WWE machine shits on Vickie. But from the outside looking in, it looks like you were snarking on Rock for your Twitter audience, and when he surprisingly responded, then it became about the issue.

The Rock doesn’t know you. You’re just some guy on the Internet telling him that he can’t stop talking to women like they’re garbage. Of course he got defensive about when you decide to introduce the conversation like that to him. It’s confrontational politics and while that may work in some cases, I don’t think this was one of them. And there’s no amount of Twitter trolls that are going to make me think you’ve earned my sympathy in this instance.

You do a good job articulating your concerns in this column and you’re building an audience. I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think you’ll ever be able to change the minds of hundreds of millions of people from different backgrounds. It sucks, but I would think its better to focus on positivity and connecting over time with people who appreciate what you have to say. Instead what happened was your first impression to a bunch of WWE fans was as “some troll that tried to tell Rock he treats women like garbage.” Good luck ever getting those fans (or the Rock) to ever take you seriously and listen to what you have to say. I don’t think you’re a hero or a martyr or a whistleblower in this situation; just an internet guy who poked at the Rock, til he poked back.

You’re right…if you criticize Brandon you will get hate. Also typical smart ass response from Brandon. You knew you would get hate tweeting the Rock, just like if I tweeted Bieber about how he sucks, I will get his fan base that is horrible

@themosayat – “there’s a difference between when you tweet beiber that “he sucks” because of his professional work and when you do the same because of the message his work passes.”

And Brandon didn’t do that. He didn’t say “your jokes are setting a bad example” or “maybe you should ease up, a lot of people think they can talk to Vickie like this IRL” He didn’t say anything like that.

He said: “Can you stop talking to women like garbage for five minutes?” Not “your character” He was talking to Rock/Dwayne/whatever you want to call him and telling the guy he was a certain way. Brandon didn’t make any clarifications about the impact his jokes have on the wwe audience; just YOU can’t stop talking to women like they’re garbage.

I don’t understand why people are replying in such a hostile manner to this comment. Brandon did have the right idea with what he said to Rock, but I agree with G4H that maybe he didn’t go about saying it to the Rock in the most constructive way. Why is G4H so bad for saying so in an intelligent, well-thought-out, and clearly not trolling manner?

G4h: I agree that confrontational surprise callouts can be problematic; however twitter as a comm. platform seems to be a perfectly appropriate venue to air a complaint. The rock had a lot of options: ignore, block, etc. instead he just calls a viewer a smark. He could’ve crafted a thoughtful defense about the nature of power in the wwe; how Vickie abuses her authority but since the rock is bulletproof job wise he can give her a comeuppance (or whatever flimsy defense one might deem passable–I agree with the sentiment that depictions of women in wwe are problematic, though I think they’ve improved dramatically thanks to the pg era).

We open ourselves up to criticism with twitter: it’s very much a public forum. It’s a far more appropriate place to do this outside of perhaps an interview or debate where the questions are known ahead of time.

@G4H I just meant that if brandon wanted to show us the types of wrestling fans and how they are indeed affected by what they see on TV to make us understand why he talks about this in his columns a lot, then that’s not wrong. unlike how you explained that him using twitter to call out the actual actor on it isn’t really right.

Again, I’m with this guy (G4H). You were playing ‘poke the lion’ a little bit here, Brandon. And then to give us all a breakdown of what happened…again, it comes across as trying to ‘put yourself over’ a bit.

I got tickets to this show before knowing it was the Slammys and wasn’t thrilled when I found out. But it got us a couple of extra Daniel Bryan appearances and that ain’t bad. It did break up the show oddly from a live perspective though – they’d have a presenter intro the Slammy, have guys come out for the match, then go back to the presenter while the wrestlers awkwardly stood around in the ring. It’s hard to look away from two guys trying to exhibit unfriendly body language but not do anything until the camera is back on them.

Maybe I am just giving the Bella’s too much credit, but they were clearly being sarcastic about the crowd loving them rather than just ignoring the boos. Right?

And I hope they don’t drag the Shield break-up out too long. I’m guessing they’ll still be together by the Royal Rumble, and eliminate each other there. And as sad as the break-up will be, the prospect Seth Rollins selling a Reigns spear is glorious.

The Seth Rollins sell of a Reigns spear will be Seth Rollins exploding into a million pieces that fly apart at the speed of light, circle the earth twice and then reform, laying on the ground, 15 feet from the original point of impact.

@Iron Mike I hope when Rollins reforms there will be a subspace anomaly which simulates a transporter accident and creates TWO Seth Rollinses so that they can be a tag team. One can be called Tyler Black. And they can be the tag team champions of the WWE, and the Captains of my heart.

Not to mention that it doesn’t matter the venue or method; a conversation can totally begin from a few tweets. Hell, if there even was a reasonable way of defending what Rock does (and what the WWE, at large, encourages and fosters), he could have written something up on his personal blog or whatever, and tweeted a link to his “response” to Brandon.

Tweeting something at The Rock about how you don’t like how he treats women (fictionally or not) isn’t snubbing out Rock’s chance at a comeback, nor denying him a response of any kind. In fact, I believe he did. By being stupid and childish, short of calling him “gay.”

“the point I’m making is that I get that this is all fake and ultimately pointless baby-entertainment, but Rock and Vickie and Cena and whoever else is laughing at the Eric Clapton goof they wrote together are not the only people who hear and see this”
Because last night on Twitter & in several previous columns, Brandon has repeatedly talked about the influence WWE has over its audience. how it conditions them on the issues of “right & wrong.”

If Brandon hates it, then do something about it. But if “something” is “be rude to one of the wrestlers out of the blue on twitter” then don’t expect a lot of results.

I don’t really think Rock is the bad guy in the way he responded to Brandon; Brandon was antagonistic. It’s not about trying to change things for the better. It’s just about looking cool to your twitter audience.

I’m reading a lot of comments right here and on Twitter praising Brandon for “speaking up.” But he wasn’t speaking up; he said it himself just a few lines ago: “it was a way for me to tell the Rock I hate a thing he does.” If Brandon was actually interested in speaking up, raising awareness, or trying to open people’s horizons I don’t think his approach was the best way to go about it.

@JerichoThat – “a conversation can totally begin from a few tweets” / “Tweeting something at The Rock about how you don’t like how he treats women (fictionally or not) isn’t snubbing out Rock’s chance at a comeback”
I agree, but Brandon said he’s not interested in starting a conversation with the Rock, he just wanted to tell him he hates a thing he does. How many times have you engaged a deep and meaningful conversation with a stranger on the internet whose introduction to you is telling you that they hate something about you?

And I want to go back to a point I raised at the beginning: Brandon, when you took your photos with John Laurinitis, why didn’t you tell him what you thought of WWE’s hiring practices with women or the way they were portrayed on TV? He’s a person of influence in the company and it’s a thing you hate, so why didn’t you say anything?

@JesuswithaShotgun — Because Brandon has constantly talked about how wrestling and its audience need to evolve? How we all need to work together and strive and make this artform better? Because Brandon just said that he would never tweet something he wouldn’t say in real life? Because Brandon has made repeated reference to disproving of Ace’s real-life practices? Because Brandon has had many documented problems with WWE’s treatment of its female employees and how they are depicted — and he was *right there* talking to the guy who was involved in the hiring practices of many of those females and reportedly perpetuated a lot of awful institutionalized behavior?

Is his love of Ace’s ironic on-screen persona so profound that he wouldn’t dare confront the actor behind the role for his influence in the treatment of women in the WWE locker room? If Rock deserves to be called out on Twitter for bad misogynistic humor — and you don’t regret it — then why can’t you call out an employee who has had just as much (if not more) negative impact on the treatment of women in WWE?

@themosayat — that doesn’t absolve him from a near-decade of bad hiring practices. And Ace is still there in a backstage capacity on a weekly basis. In fact he’s there more often than the Rock, so you could make the argument that he could implement some change much faster than whenever the Rock decides to show up next.

Um, one is a public forum where one is free to express their opinion on any given subject and the other is probably some type of fan access event where people are not there to just discuss everything that is wrong with the industry.

Think about it, if we met face to face right now, do you think it would socially acceptable for me to just start railing into you about why I disagree with your whole line of thought? It would not cross my mind to just interject about why I think your line of thinking is terrible. There is a time and a place for that. This isn’t even debatable, it is just standard interaction.

When Johnny Ace make meh talent hires, he’s not doing so in a public setting. To the overwhelming majority of the Universe, what he does behind the scenes “isn’t important,” so to speak. This isn’t Eric Bischoff introducing Hot Lesbian Action. If you want to criticize Brandon for not publicly calling out WWE hiring practices then fine. But in the year or so that I’ve read B&W, I’ve not once seen Brandon be a Johnny Ace apologist, nor have I seen him try to justify those hiring decisions.

By contrast, when Dwayne/Rock makes a public statement, on a public forum or in front of thousands of people, when he calls Vickie a fat bitch and says that Paul Heyman has Twinkie Tits, when he so quickly goes for casual sexism and othering and gets cheered for it, that is significant. And not that this is a foolproof argument, but if Johnny isnt the final word on hiring, then his input may matter a lot less. Rock actively writes his own material,thundthsh

Goddamn mobile. What I MEANT to write was that since Rock writes his own material, he chooses the crass option. And it honestly was completely unnecessary, and is another example of how, when given the chance, he goes for the quick and douchey option.

Not entirely. He still heavily works with his head writer Brian. Also, depending on the situation/schedule, Rock only can work with whats given to him due to time. Which makes sense because hes busy in films. Such as the time he had to fly into RAW one night while being involved filming a movie earlier in that day.

But really, at the end of the day, everyone involved gets together and wraps up the material amongst themselves for their said promo. They are all to look at it or if you dont like it, to blame. Not just Rock.

@CPR
So where is the voice of reason? Vickie is a heel; certainly there must be better ways to call her out than to go with the easy “hurr fat bitch.” Where’s the guy who’s raising his hand and asking if its a good idea to do this stuff; that voice of reason?

Why was it necessary for Rock to tweet at Vickie? What purpose does it serve? Did he meet with Brian or whomever before he wrote that? And again, what’s the point?

The tweet was nothing more than a callback to the segment. He acknowledged the win, made that quick call back as Dwayne and then proceeded to praise Vickie. Vickie retweeted that and said she had fun and was honored to be in the segment or whatever. Its just something that is not that major of a deal to both Rock and Vickie.

@rebound & @JesuswithaShotgun — because Brandon was being antagonistic. He admits that he wanted to tell the Rock that he hated it and he knew what response would be.

So what point is he trying to prove? That if provoke the Rock all his defenders will look like idiots? It’s reaching low hanging fruit… and it’s an arrogant position to assume.

If the whole point was to tell the Rock that his material sucked, knowing it would piss off Rock’s fans, it wasn’t about getting Rock — or his fans — to think twice. So he’s not really crusading for change at that point. He’s just taking a shot at an easy target.

There are countless ways he could have phrased that tweet if he wanted Rock to take pause and maybe regret his actions, do something different next time and start changing his fans’ minds.

He didn’t do that. He made a public spectacle instead. He got more attention to his blog.
Nobody’s minds have changed and the people that disagreed with him beforehand now think even less of him. *slow clap*

If he’s going to just be professionally antagonistic like that then why is it suddenly so “improper” to do it to another habitual offender of WWE sexism? Because Brandon’s a fanboy for that guy’s character?

I was never a huge Punk fan, a moderate one but never a huge one, and this segment converted me into adoring him. The way-too-tiny-underwear wearing Punk delivering the most awkward hug to Stephanie was just icing on the cake.

I laughed, I sighed. And it was good. Brandon, you always manage to brighten my day after work on Tuesdays and, at the risk of getting called out because I happen to AGREE with someone else on the internet, your battle against the twitterati and League Of Troglodytes was noble and honorable.

I find that Twitter really does give voice to outright ignorance and bigotry, as well as an air of authority (since it’s so easy to publish these random musings and have them accessible for everyone to see and reiterate). It gives it credence, so when someone decides to tackle it with the sword of righteousness, I will always be grateful. Yeah, it’s not hard to do, and you’re not risking much aside from getting called a “fag” by 12-year olds, but it’s something that needs to be done more often.

In short, you are the man.

Now who else was pissed at Booker for calling HBK “The Superstar himself?” I was totally stoned and half-expecting to hear an awesome promo about how you “don’t ever touch my arm, don’t ever touch my body.”

Does anyone notice that Brandon refers to last years Slammy’s, but links to the 2011 Slammy’s? What happened to 2012????
I seem to remember Daniel Bryan being upset that he didn’t win and had to be carried off the stage by Kane while everyone chanted “NO”.

Dream ending for TLC, Trips steal both belts only to get hit with a running high knee, D-Bry then catches the Belts (which are still just floating in the air) and becomes the almighty champion of all time. Cena then rises D-Bry on his shoulders as Trips just blows up.

Seattle really brought it last night. I’m pretty bummed now that I didn’t go. The last time I saw a live event in Key Arena it was a Smackdown taping in 2003 or 2004 and it was DEAD. I really didn’t expect that kind of crowd.

lol this whole thing with Rock is beyond tiring and silly. Good points are always made but at the end of the day I personally can not care anymore because The Rock has always been a bully, a**hole character. Pretty much going on 20 years. Never was going to change, never was going to stop. The man has done and said an endless amount of degrading, silly, and crazy things in his WWE TV run but now all of a sudden everyone is up and arms about it. The points are very valid and very true but its really too late to try and prove anything to the Rock’s character in particular. Especially with him being a part timer way past his run. Hes a nonsense character. Its honestly (no pun intended) doesn’t even matter anymore.

Dwayne Johnson is totally opposite from The Rock and The Rock’s crazy thoughts. Whats sad is that people think he really feels that way about women or that he is a homophobe and that is far from the truth. Those days of the blurred lines between the real life/characters are pretty much gone, so I dont think its a big deal as people think. People know or at least they should this.

If you want to attack his character, then by all means do so. Make a point as to thats what you are talking about. His character. but dont run off thinking the man is truly this hateful degrading man because hes not. (not aiming this at anyone here but to those who do)

I can only speak for myself, but I know (or at least, assume) that Dwayne Johnson isn’t really a women-hating d-bag who can’t stop himself from being “funny” at the expense of disenfranchised groups of people. It’s the fact that its his super-popular-can’t-do-no-wrong character is spouting off like that and encouraging others to believe that since it’s happening on a show where nothing really matters, that it doesn’t matter and anyone who has a problem with that sort of “humor” is a humorless prude who deserves to get their ass kicked while being called a “queer-o-sexual” because they don’t get the joke or something trivial and pointless like that.

It’s the accessibility and the lending of credence to this type of behavior that’s problematic.

Seconded. My big issue with this Authority thing is that there are seeming barriers to their power. If they’d really done it right, every face that they didn’t like would have been forced to fight The Shield by themselves for months, until Vince Ex Machina or whoever showed up to tell them their power isn’t, in fact, limitless. Their reign of terror has really felt kind of half-assed, and Triple H straight up naming himself the best possible thing for business has some potential.

Of course, this plan would mean that he can’t just be champion for over one unbroken year again and would have to show ass at some point, so I’m barking up the wrong tree here probably.

For me, it’s almost a lock that HHH ends up champ at some point. Though, to be fair, I think he’ll cheat like hell to do it and not necessarily look like a super-tough-killer (wishful thinking probably).

It’s hard to predict what’s gonna happen because I have so little idea what the Wrestlemania match-ups are going to be.

I’m really excited for this whole thing to blow over. As much as I adore being able to follow a wrestling writer who a) has an adult-sized moral compass, flawed as all of ours often are and b) hasn’t previously and passive-aggressively fired me from working for their outlet, I just want the WL thread to go back to being a place where generally cool people make pop culture references, sans everybody coming in to talk shit one way or another.

I’ve been spending most of this discussion scrolling down, away from all the Twitter madness to get to the comments discussing the program. We actually had a pretty good Slammy broadcast, something I didn’t think was possible.
Solid wrestling, Shield in Suits, all the Daniel Bryan love, Punk being closer to 2011 Punk than 2012 Punk, Shield in Suits (so good I had to say it twice)…

I don’t get to chat about wrestling at work (it’s mostly women… and they all watch Revenge and The Voice… which is fine if you’re into that sort of thing, but I prefer to watch dudes make weird faces and pretend to beat each other up in pseudo-underwear) so I come here to do it. Hopefully next week we can get back to that.

I read that “because he can’t draw or whatever” as in Bryan can’t DRAW draw, like pictures and stuff. It created this hilarious situation in my head where Bryan is sitting at a desk with a pencil in his hand surrounded by a ton of crumpled papers while “Poor little Bryan, trying to draw” is playing in the background.

“All right, Brian! You’ve passed medical, you’ve obviously trained hard for this spot and you definitely know your craft. You’re nearly there! Now all that’s left is the little matter of the drawing portion of the entrance exam.”

“Well, once I drew 1,000 people into tiny gym and they stood uncomfortably arm-to-arm to watch me wrestle.”

Prediction: John Cena wins when Kane comes out and chokeslams Orton without Cena seeing it. Triple H and Stephanie come out to raise Cena’s hand as their next hand-picked Face of the WWE. No alignment turns occur; everyone remains a face/heel. Raw begins storyline where the Authority do whatever they can to keep Cena champ while Cena deals with being champ without taking the shortcuts and becoming a heel.

nice one. would really be better if it ends wrestlemania 30 by him turning (not because I’m on the internet and think it’s cool, but because I think the man will excell at it and wwe will have a f*cking awesome story until WM31.

Fuck. I totally forgot that once you believe in feminism and other basic things, that everything that ever comes out of your mouth until you die has to be completely in line with that first part. And I didn’t realize that people are innately full of contradictions and are prone to believing things that don’t always slavishly align. Thank you for your post.

Honestly? If I could delete this post I would. It’s not articulating why I think the above is bullshit; had I the time, I’d try to do it better but I can’t. And I’m posting this more than anything because I’m not going to just not respond to that and prove whatever point you’re sarcastically getting at. I think lilb123 (IF THAT IS THEIR REAL NAME) is making a troubling argument, but I can’t adequately reply to it this second. If that means they win, so be it I guess.

I think the point he’s trying to make is that if you truly believe in something you consistently stand up for that belief regardless of the situation. I’m not sure what is “troubling” to you about that.

We can’t forget the massive flower in the pot of dirt that was the Rock Twitter Anthology of Bullshit, Brandon. Paige noticing / agreeing with / following you. Personally, I’d be willing to sit through hundreds of dumb tweets for that kind of reward.

Originally when I saw Brandon tweet the Rock I thought to myself “well what did you think was going to happen, dummy?” But as the night went on and I followed the responses It became clearer and clearer to me that not only was his point valid but by including the Rock (and by default his fans/followers) his point was proved 1000%.

When a large percentage of fans can’t separate what they see on TV from the real world it doesn’t matter if real life Vickie is ok with being called a dumpster slut on TV, it’s still harmful to professional wrestling culture and fandom (or if it’s not harmful it just reinforces an already existing horribly sexist culture).

… or something like that. I don’t know man. I just come here for the dragon ball z jokes.

There is something even more disconcerting when you consider the fact WWE has specifically altered its project to pander to a young, impressionable demographic. Some of the adults tweeting Brandon last night are a perfect example of how this type of medium can affect socially-developing adolescents.

^ That. That times 1000. This was just stupid “catchphrasing” during the TV14 eras, but at least you can expect teenagers, the coveted TV14 audience to understand the difference between right and wrong regardless of if they choose to use it. They should still know better. Trying to appeal to a younger audience that doesnt quite get it yet is an entirely different story. Its one thing to call someone a funny bitch hooker slut in a comical fashion during Anchorman 2, rated R and its another to do the same thing during a PG comedy designed to appeal to younger crowds. And thats whats going on here. The majority of the show is trying to appeal to the younger kids, but they trot out good ole Rock to yell in a microphone while wearing sunglasses to see if he can capture that Attitude Era magic he had. The reality of it is that the product has moved on. Dwayne Johnson has moved on, and “The Rock” should move on as well. I think that one of the frustrating parts is that “The Rock” is better than this. Ive seen him be better than this. And by better, I mean better at cutting promos and not just making up dirty nursery rhymes for cheap pop.

@blacktooth: still probably not ok since the characters in anchorman are all insufferable idiots, and not THE MOST ELECTRIFYING people’s champ or whatever. 2003 heel Hollywood rock doing this shtick seems appropriate since that character was not a good dude. 2013 pec pop tooth fairy family movie rock shouldn’t be depicting this behavior to an audience wen he’s presented as someone to emulate (which based on the number of people in my middle school doing the people’s eyebrow, is a metric crap ton)

thanks for whoever modirated my comment. I learned to put spaces in between long words.

also, wanted to add, thanks for whoever had that “okada > cena” sign, and to mark herny for the moment he raised bryan’s arm and gave the people a “you’re right, but cut it out now. the show must go on” sign.

and as much as I liked cena’s performance and intensity at the last promo, I didn’t like more than ONE comment or sentence from any ones that he said (only one is his “I look forward to a rematch with you, sir *shakes bryan’s hand*”. it all sounded like lies to me. almost everything he described orton with (except for taking drugs or whatever) could be said about him, too. and any wrestler he claimed he gave a chance to or put over (LOL), orton also faced BEFORE him and put him over BEFORE! (orton/ziggler survivor series 2012, orton/punk many times in 2011 where punk shined, orton/bryan earlier this year where bryan made orton tap out! also, later this year where orton lost to bryan 3 times and only THE AUTHORITY screwed bryan.)

I loved Booker stripping Punk, as well as how most of spinaroonie attempts were just guys rolling around the ring. Also, Cena not even being able to do a kip up? Priceless.

Also, I remember one time after Smackdown, Booker challenged Bryan to do a spinaroonie, and even though Bryan didn’t do it quite well that time either, he did a backflip into a split right after it, so I was wondering if he was going to break out some similar stuff this time out too, but I guess that’s kinda hard to do in casual clothes…

I’ve noticed how (at least on the version i downloaded) the LIVE mark was missing from the WWE sign in the lower left corner of the screen during the Ascension Ceremony segment. Also, at some points the feed seemed really cut up.

“Someone on Twitter asked me how I’d break the Shield up if I was put in charge of it, and I said something about giving Roman a big singles run and maybe bringing up an NXT tough to be the new Roman and keep the squad intact, but I’ve got a better idea. WWE’s obsessed with booking these 3-on-1 handicap matches, right? That’s got to be on purpose. It has to go somewhere. So you establish that the Authority goes to this as their can’t-miss punishment technique. Done. When it gets closer to WrestleMania, the Undertaker shows back up and does his throat-draggy challenge face at Triple H, because they “ended an era” supposedly but H and Shawn are still all over Raw making everybody’s lives miserable. Triple H, because he is now a coward and not the coolest and toughest and smartest, backs down from the challenge. When Taker pressures him, he books Taker vs. The Shield in a 3-on-1 handicap match at Mania. They’ve got a pre-established problem with one another, so it works.

That’s enough to make you think maybe Taker’s gonna lose, right? So at Mania the Shield makes their entrance, but right before the match starts, Roman Reigns makes Ambrose and Rollins leave. Decides he’s going to prove himself and take out the Undertaker by himself. Ambrose and Rollins are rightfully pissed and abandon him, and you do whatever you want with Rollins/Taker. Have Reigns come close and become a superstar, have Reigns win if you want, whatever. Taker keeps his legacy in a story that makes sense and matters, the entire thing ties into the Authority storyline and references past WrestleManias, you get an explanation for why they’re booking the show so stupidly and Roman gets made to look noble and tough. Because eventually you’re gonna have to put your faith in ONE of these young guys.”